


He Who Is Made Of Iron

by EternalLibrary



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Alternate universe where tea is a big(ish) deal lol, Gen, M/M, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-01-31 21:07:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18599428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EternalLibrary/pseuds/EternalLibrary
Summary: Tea reminds Costis of his childhood.





	He Who Is Made Of Iron

**Author's Note:**

> The Gods only can guess why I was gripped by the need to write a fic about tea in the Queen's Thief series but...here it is.  
> This is for day 7 of Queen's Thief Appreciation Week, but also technically fits for favourite book (a tie between King of Attolia and Thick as Thieves (but also every book)), favourite character (again it's all of them but especially Costis), favourite ship (Comet owns my entire soul) and scene not shown (which is like....this entire fic).

Tea is the taste of his childhood, the softly sweet earthy taste of the ironwort that grows around the farm. He can close his eyes and picture the scented steam rising through their home, can hear his mother stirring in a spoonful of honey, saying, “drink up Costis, and you’ll feel better.”

He can remember being six and ill and his mother making him tea and sitting on the edge of his bed.

“Do you know where the name ironwort comes from?” she says, brushing his hair from his forehead.

He shakes his head and sips the tea.

“In the ancient days,” she says, “they called the plant ‘he who is made of iron’.”

Cosits wrinkles his brow. Iron is hard and cold, and the tea is warm and soothes his sore throat.

“There can be strength,” she says, “in softness.”

Sometimes, he finds he can’t remember her face, but he can remember her voice, and the smell of the tea.

* * *

 

When he leaves for the city of Attolia, he leaves behind his home and his family and the scent that reminds him of his mother. If the guards drink anything hot, it is coffee, and Costis grows used to his new life, his new routines, and does not think often of his childhood.

He is out with Aris, one time, when he sees the familiar yellow flowers. They are hunting, having a few days of leave. Costis drops to one knee to run a lamb-soft leaf between his fingers.

“What’s that?” Aris asks.

Costis stands, holds his hand out to Aris, “Smell.”

Aris inhales deeply, blows out, breath brushing Costis’s fingers. “Sage?” he says.

“Ironwort,” Costis corrects. “For tea.”

Aris breaks the top of a plant off, smells again. He nods slowly, “My mum used to make tea when I was sick.”

“So,” says Costis. “With honey?”

“Not for us,” Aris says.

Costis tucks a handful of stems into a pocket. When they make a fire that night, he boils a pan of water with the ironwort in it.

Aris wrinkles his nose, “Reminds me of being sick.”

Costis breathes the steam in. The scent is different with the fresh leaves but it still brings his home to mind. He feels that he could wrap the smell around him like a cloak and feel perfectly at peace.

* * *

 

“Have you ever had chiai?” the king asks.

“No, your majesty,” says Costis.

Chiai is imported from far, far away and very much a drink for barons and royalty. Costis wouldn’t know it to see it, much less to taste.

“They call it tea,” the king says, “but it’s not real tea. Not what we had in Eddis.”

Costis doesn’t say anything. The king is staring out the window, looking towards the distant mountains. Costis would have retreated by now, had the king not spoken to him.

“In Eddis,” the king continues, “tea is made from the ironwort plant. It used to be thought of as a panacea, you know. When Galen wasn’t poisoning me with his concoctions, he let me drink tea…”

The king is looking into the middle distance, and Costis wonders if he is thinking of a soft scent that reminds him of his home. 

* * *

 

As the weeks pass, Costis feels that every time he is close to being sure of his footing the world shifts and he stumbles off balance again. He watches the king sleep away the morning, trying to unravel the tangled threads that have been twisted into his life.  

When Phresine comes to sit with the king, she brings him a clay cup from which steam is gently rising. As Costis moves a chair for her to sit on, he catches a whiff of tea.

The king eyes the cup with suspicion. “Is this some kind of vile concoction from Petrus?” he asks Phresine.

“Why don’t you try some and find out,” she says, offering him the cup.

The king sniffs the steam delicately, and the wrinkle between his brows disappears.

“This is _tea_ ,” he says. “ _Real_ tea. I didn’t know I could get real tea in the palace.”

“You can get ironwort from any market corner in the city,” Presine replies. “After all, the rest of us have to drink something less dear than chiai.”

The king looks at Costis, an offended expression on his face. Costis isn’t sure what he did to deserve it.

“Costis,” the king says, “you let me whine about the awful chiai and didn’t say _anything_.”

Costis blinks. He’d almost forgotten about that one conversation with the king, just one of many bemusing things that had happened to him, around him, during the past months.

“I am sorry, your majesty,” he says.

The king harumphs and Phresine gently bats his shoulder with a hand, “Drink up,” she says, “and you’ll feel better.”

* * *

 

In Sherguz, after Kamet has talked to the innkeeper, they are given dry clothes and shown to their room. Costis suspects it is the finest room in the inn, opened for them due to his supposed wealth. A servant brings a clay pitcher and a single cup. It’s more of the same mint tea that they had had on the _Anet’s Dream_. Or rather, that Costis had had. The servant pours the tea from high above the cup, not spilling a drop, and the tea is capped with bubbles.

When Costis has drunk a cup of the sharp warm tea, he offers the cup to Kamet, who waves it away.

Costis sets the cup down, does not pour another. “Is it improper for slaves to drink tea?” he asks Kamet, after a moment.

He’s not sure how to politely ask, not sure if he even should. Kamet is so prickly-proud and Costis is unsure of his footing, wary of stumbling into offence.

“That’s not even true tea,” Kamet says, haughty, “it’s just mint in hot water.”

Costis wonders if he’s used the wrong words again. He’s thought the Mede word for “tea” meant any plant steeped in hot water. He doesn’t ask though, just finishes dressing in the borrowed clothes and heads back downstairs, Kamet trailing him like a shadow.

* * *

 

On their fourth day crossing the Taymets, they reach the snows. The sun shines down on them, and the hiking keeps them warm, but soon the small tracks and trails that they had been following dump them into the snow, so their feet are soaking and cold by the end of the day. Costis is relieved to find another cave to shelter in for the night, and even more so to see the neat pile of firewood stacked beside some cooking pans.

He leaves Kamet to start a fire and warm up and goes back outside to scoop up pans of snow to melt over the fire. Kamet has brought bread and dried vegetables out of the package of food from Vedra, as well as the remains of the goat Costis had killed the day before. He is holding a small packet up to his face, smelling the contents. The firelight flickers gold over his face, and he holds the packet out to Costis.

“I don’t know what this herb is,” he says. “It was in the bottom of the package. It smells familiar.”

Costis takes it, breathes in and…oh. He closes his eyes and sees Attolia, sees the olive trees and fields of corn of the farm.

“It’s tea,” he says, using the Attolian word.

Kamet nods in understanding. “Mountain tea,” he says in Mede. “That’s what we call it.”

“Have you had it?” Costis asks.

“In Attolia,” Kamet says, “I developed a cold one winter. Someone in the kitchens made it for me, said it would let me breathe easier.”

“In Eddis they used to call it a panacea, a cure-all,” Costis says, remembering the king’s words.

After they have eaten, Costis boils the ironwort in a pan, remembering making tea for him and Aris so long ago. He waits for Kamet to drink first, watching him. He’s not sure why he is so intent upon Kamet’s reaction, but he almost holds his breath. Kamet looks back at him steadily.

“It reminds me of Attolia,” he says.

“So, so, so,” Costis agrees, slowly. He thinks of Kamet calling Attolia a ‘backwards, stinking cesspit’, thinks of how he had talked of the Attolian gardens, and the errand boy.

“It reminds me,” Costis says, says like it’s a gift, says like it’s a fragile thing he is handing to Kamet, “of home.”

* * *

 

Costis leaves from the city of Attolia feeling angrily rather like a leaf tossed about on the wind of the king’s whims.

He is glad to be going home, to be seeing his family, but he can’t help but grumble to himself, “Go to Medea, Costis. Bring Kamet to Attolia, Costis. Go home to say goodbye to your family so that you can go wherever I want to send you next, Costis.”

He is angrier, he thinks, than he should be. He’s angry at the king and at Kamet and at himself and the anger is so twisted up he can’t quite find the thread of what he’s angry _about_.

When he finally reaches home two days later the anger has cooled and he is feeling alone in a way he hasn’t in quite some time. When his sister rushes out to greet him, he clings tight to her.

The house is smaller than he remembers, his father shorter and older than he remembers. There’s something off that he can’t entirely put his finger on, but he realizes after several days on the farm that it doesn’t feel entirely like _home_ anymore.

Thalia joins him one evening, as he sits outside, watching the stars slowly appearing in the sky. She is holding two cups, and hands him one as she settles beside him.

“I thought you could use this,” she says.

It’s tea, honey sweet and warm, and he wants to cry with the familiarity of it.

They sit together as the sky washes a deep velvet blue and the stars peek out.

* * *

 

Roa is small and peaceful and Costis feels more unfettered than he has in a while. Yes, he is mapping the area and keeping an eye to the sea, but he also has _time_ stretching out towards an inevitable end that seems less inevitable in the hills surrounding the temple.

Kamet goes to the temple every day and Costis hikes the hills around Roa or works on their small kitchen garden. Their neighbours are not close, but that doesn’t stop them from pressing seedlings and clippings upon Costis and Kamet when they come across either of them.

Kamet comes home clutching a small package close to himself. He opens it to show Costis the delicate rose buds within.

They put the kettle on to boil and Kamet carefully breaks the green bases off the buds, placing both in the boiling water. The tea doesn’t need honey, it is sweet enough, golden and faintly oily. The buds break apart, petals swirling pink in the water.

When he kisses Kamet he can taste the roses, delicate and sweet. The two of them breathe together, foreheads pressed against one another, as the tea cools, forgotten, on the table.

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the QTea Headcanon Zone
> 
> The tea that Costis drinks, and that most of the rest of the Little Peninsula drinks is _[Sideritis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideritis)_ , which is also known as Greek Mountain Tea, or Ironwort (or probably countless other names). When people refer to 'tea' in the language of the Little Peninsula, this is what they mean, unless it's clear from context that they mean another plant steeped in hot water (i.e., rose tea). _Sideritis_ tea is prepared by bringing water to boil with the leaves, flowers and stems of the plant in the water, as opposed to pouring boiling water over the plant (this process is known as decoction, fwiw). While Costis likes his tea with honey, it can also be served with a slice of lemon, or have other herbs added to it to bring out other flavours.
> 
> Chiai is the name that those on the Little Peninsula use for tea specifically made from the _[Camellia sinensis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camellia_sinensis)_ plant, which is imported from the QT world's equivalent of Asia. At this point in time it is very fancy and expensive, and only drunk by people like barons and royalty, as a kind of status symbol.
> 
> The Mede empire likely has any number of hot drinks, many of which are probably called 'tea' or something similar. Costis uses the correct word for 'tea' in Mede, where it means 'any plant steeped in hot water'. Kamet is a colossal tea snob. Nehuseresh can afford to have _Camellia sinensis_ tea, which Kamet thinks of as 'true tea'.
> 
> Mint tea is more commonly drunk in the areas of Mede that Kamet and Costis travel through, though there are many different ways of preparing it. The fancy way is to pour the tea from some height above the teacup in order to make froth. Adding air to tea can really heighten the flavours, which is why you'll sometimes see tea tasters slurping their tea.
> 
>  _Sideritis_ likes to grow all around the Middle Sea, so it is common in places like Roa and Zaboar. It's true that _Sideritis_ can be used for a lot of different ailments - it's an anti-oxidant, as well as being anti-microbial and anti-inflamatory. You can read more about that in the wikipedia article I linked above.
> 
> Comments are like warm tea on a cold day! Also, feel free to hit me up on my [tumblr](http://imaginariumgeographica.tumblr.com) to talk tea or Queen's Thief (or even both), and be blessed in your endeavours :)


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